The Truth
by Renae17
Summary: Hermione dies in a muggle war, bringing Draco to come out with his feelings about her. – One-shot! DH, obviously!


**A/N:** Just a thought for this story came to me while I was "vacationing" in Ohio! I'm sorry if it's not very good... and this is my first one-chapter-story-thing... lol Yay me!

**Summary:** Hermione dies in a muggle war, bringing Draco to come out with his feelings about her. – One-shot! DH, obviously!

**Disclaimer:** Okay, so we all know the characters aren't mine! The plot is, though! At least I'm pretty sure it is... lol! Alright here we go...

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"If I could say one thing about Hermione Granger..."

Draco Malfoy sat in the back of a crowd of crying people dressed in all black. He wasn't crying, himself, though. At least not on the outside. But on the inside he was being torn apart.

Just the year before Hermione had decided to volunteer as a doctor in the muggle war going on around them.

"I can use magic to help treat people! Like potions! I can make a HUGE difference, Draco, can't you see it?"

"'Mione, I know you want to help fix the world, but muggle wars can be just as dangerous as a wizard war, and sometimes even worse! I don't want to lose you!"

"You won't lose me! What makes you think that? And besides, I won't be in ANY harms way! I promise you, Draco! I'll come back!"

After hours of arguing, Draco finally decided... maybe she was right. He hated to see her go, but he'd feel even worse if she wasn't helping out. She'd never let Draco live it down, and he knew that she was supposed to do this. He could see it in her eyes. He could picture it in his head.

"Okay, Hermione. If this is really what you want to do right now, that's... fine by me, I guess." Draco had a hard time telling her, but she was excited by the time she understood what he was saying.

Draco got together with Harry and Ron to throw Hermione the perfect going away party, even though going away to a war isn't normally celebrated. It was "spectacular", as she put it. "I loved it, Draco! I can't believe you did this for me!"

Two weeks later Draco went with Hermione to see her off. He watched her plane leave until it was completely out of sight, then he turned around and went home. He dreamed of her every night, always happy thoughts of when she would come back home. He never dreamed of what would happen next.

About a week and a half before Hermione was due to come home for a little bit of a holiday Draco got a letter from the army general of Hermione's unit. He wanted to meet with Draco the next day around noon. Not knowing what on earth the meeting could be about, Draco left for their meeting place, looking at about his best.

"... Mr. Malfoy, I think it's about time we get to the reason why I've called this meeting."

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon, and Draco had come early to this... meeting. The general, however, had been about fifteen minutes late. They had made acquaintances and talked, even joked a little. But now that it seemed to be getting later than expected, it was time to get down to business.

"Alright, I'm ready for this news! I mean, it can't be that bad, can it?" Draco questioned. "Is it that Hermione can't come home for that holiday? Is she still needed?"

"Well, Mr. Malfoy... Hermione... she _can't_ home for a holiday, you'd be right. But it isn't because she's needed..." The general spoke slowly and clearly, not wanting to get straight to the point for disappointment or... hurt.

Draco had a confused look on his face. He had a sense that he wouldn't want to hear the news, but he wanted the general to get it out. He wanted to understand fully and completely, and he wanted to make sure that what he thought was being said... wasn't being said...

"Hermione's station in the war... well, it was bombed. They can't find any trace of her body or any... erm... body parts..."

Draco didn't speak. He wouldn't speak. It was like if he was allowed to speak, he'd be allowed to accept this as the truth. This had to be some kind of joke, or just a set-up to see how he would react. Hermione was probably hiding behind something in the diner. Maybe the meeting was really about how they don't want her in the war anymore, to keep her safe.

"Nice one general... You had me totally fooled there for a few minutes! Now, really, what's this about?" Draco was getting worried, and you could tell it in his voice.

"This is... no joke, Mr. Malfoy. The only way we could even get hold of you is because Hermione left contact information so that we could reach someone if anything were to... happen... to her. You were the first... and only person listed."

"So you're... you're serious, then? N-No lie?" Draco took a deep breath and closed his eyes. 'This can't be happening... it just can't!' he thought to himself.

"No lie..."

The general trusted Draco to tell the "news" to everyone else. He had a hard time explaining, but eventually he got it out, even though there was a little difficulty. Everyone was broken down, but by the end of the night they finally managed to agree on one thing.

Even though they had nothing of Hermione but her possessions left at her apartment, half of them moved into the Malfoy Manor, they were going to be proper. They were going to give Hermione a funeral.

Draco, Harry, Ron and Ginny had put a ton of work and time into making the room where the eulogy would be perfect. They shared many moments of their experiences with Hermione, every single one of them cried at least once (even Draco, who had silent tears and tried to cover them up), and in the end they made it look like the perfect shrine, you wouldn't believe four people had done this kind of work.

They made sure that everything was set the morning of her funeral, not wanting to really go through it, but they knew they had to. If they didn't, they would be fooling everyone that Hermione wasn't... gone. And while that would be great news to everyone, they knew that they didn't want to live their lives in a lie, and they wanted to respect Hermione in the best way possible. It was just about set in stone.

Very slowly, through the crowd of crying people, Draco made his way up to the podium. He had been trying to hold back his tears the whole time, and, being a Malfoy, he had. But now was the time it would be the toughest.

Searching the crowd of people gathered in front of him, Draco could tell you each one's experience with Hermione just from the looks on their faces. He sighed visibly, taking out a small picture of Hermione and him, both smiling up at him. Running his hand through his hair, he leaned forward toward the microphone, coughing slightly before speaking.

"I remember the first time I ever saw Hermione Granger... she was sitting outside an ice cream parlor with a book in her hands and a list of supplies for school in front of her," Draco sighed once more at the memory. "She was... amazing. She had this unbelievable grace in her and she was concentrating so much on that book..."

Draco slowly looked up to the sky. He couldn't do this. He just couldn't! Going through with the plans set for today would mean that it was _absolutely positively _true that she was gone...

**.................!Flashback!.................**

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!" she screamed. "I HATE YOU! I BLOODY HATE YOU! I HATE..." Slowly, Hermione ran herself into the corner and slid down against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably.

Draco looked at her with a hurt expression on his face. "I'm sorry, Hermione..." he whispered to her, cautiously taking steps toward her.

"SHUT UP!" she screamed once more. "NO, YOU AREN'T! DON'T YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE!" She picked up a glass vase containing wilting red and white roses, gem-like rocks, and water, chucking it at Draco with full force.

She missed.

The fact of the matter was that Lucius wanted to show Draco what he's been working on lately, and if Draco had declined this offer it would have been very suspicious. Of course, if Lucius Malfoy was "working on" something, then it more than likely had something to do with Voldemort's defeat and the rise of some of the remaining Deatheaters.

So Draco went with him. What he didn't know was that Lucius was going to try to get information out of a certain someone that Hermione was close to, and if he refused to give up the information needed... well, Lucius was a rather powerful wizard.

"Hermione, I am! I AM sorry!" Draco pleaded, trying to get over to her, but she kept running from him. "I didn't know what my father was going to do, and if I had known that it had anything at all to do with Remus Lupin, you know that I would have refused to go, and stop him dead in his tracks!"

"Well, you know WHAT, Draco?!" Hermione yelled through gritted teeth. "SORRY just isn't good enough!"

It was two days later when Draco finally was able to explain everything to her clearly without getting nearly killed by a flying vase. She was still in mourning, but had agreed to listen to Draco's story, and after hearing the whole thing she finally believed him.

They spent the rest of the night talking. Well, more or less Draco was talking, trying to comfort Hermione, but after a few hours she had fallen asleep laying on Draco, her head on his shoulder and her hand over his heart. Everything seemed to be placed just right, and somehow Draco knew this wouldn't be the last time she would be lying next to him as they both slept.

Somehow he knew.

**.................!End Flashback!.................**

"Hermione is... the only person in the world that I would die for. I will risk anything for her, and I'd do anything to keep her happy. I would have sacrificed myself and my life in luxury if Hermione asked me to, but she didn't. If she had told me that she wanted me with her in that war... I would have gone, even though she wasn't asking me to.

"There are two things I would say to her, right now, that I wish I could have said before... but everyone makes mistakes or gets nervous. I just wish that... maybe that I hadn't..."

**.................!Flashback!.................**

"Draco?" Hermione called, lightly, after breakfast one morning.

"Yes, Hermione?"

"I was just wondering..." She paused, looking at a piece of thread coming loose from the couch she sat on and lightly tapping her fingers on her leg.

"Go on..." Draco put out, shutting a book carefully and placing it on the table beside him, now turning his full attention towards Hermione.

"Have you ever thought of having kids? Or maybe getting married? At all?" she softly whispered, still audible for Draco.

"Maybe... why do you ask?"

"I don't know. I just," Hermione was hesitating to get it out. "I really want to have a family, Draco, and I was just wondering... you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Draco agreed. He watched as her eyes got the look of disappointment in them and turned to look into the fire across the room. "Oh, Hermione..."

She slowly lifted her head to him, looking into his eyes and Draco felt his breath get caught in his throat. She always managed to do something to him, no matter what the situation was.

"Hermione, I promise you one day... you will have kids, and they'll be beautiful. Just like their mother. And you'll be married and... you'll live a wonderful life, I promise you!" Draco whispered to her, his eyes soft and his voice soothing. He lifted her chin and looked her straight in the eye, the fire's light revealing every color in her soft brown eyes. "You understand me?"

Hermione nodded her head, a tear slowly falling from her right eye. "But will it be with you, Draco?" she asked, searching his face. "Will it?"

He looked into her eyes and saw hope in them. Not wanting to lie to her at all, he never answered her question, but instead sent butterflies into her stomach as his lips covered hers.

**.................!End Flashback!.................**

Draco slowly opened his eyes, coming out of a dream of Hermione. And when reality hit him once more, that's what he wished earlier today was.

Just a dream.

Draco had finished his speech and had managed to sustain his composure until about the last two minutes of it. He had lonely tears run down his cheeks, but his voice did not quaver once. Ron nodded his head to Draco, letting him leave when and if he needed to. Everyone had a breakage point, and Ron could sense Draco's coming soon.

As soon as Draco left the podium he went to go back to the manor, where he silently cried himself to sleep. If you had come up to him five years ago and told him he would be crying and openly showing his emotions for one Hermione Granger he would have called you crazy and cursed you. But now was another story.

As Draco cautiously lifted himself off of his still-made bed he walked over to a bookshelf that held albums upon albums of photos. Hermione had organized each one specifically, each shelf held photos of different people. The top one used to hold pretty much the life of Lucius, but Draco burned them the day after Hermione and him made up from the big Remus incident.

Lucius had been caught two weeks after Lupin's death and sent to Azkaban in one of the high security cells. After having a trial with the Ministry of Magic, they had Lucius on a death sentence. (Times had changed after Voldemort's defeat.) He's been gone for almost a year now, and Draco didn't care.

Now the top row of the bookshelf held picture frames of Hermione and himself, reserving a spot for their children, Draco silently thought after the pictures of Lucius had been engulfed in flames.

The next row contained photo albums of Draco's deceased mother, Narcissa Malfoy, who died due to an attack from other Deatheaters on a nearby city. (Lucius didn't know anything about it, but he didn't seem to mind after he found what exactly had happened.)

The following two rows were all of Draco, who seemed to have more pictures than you could imagine. Half of the second row was of him and Hermione, though.

And lastly, the bottom row held pictures of Hermione and her friends and family. Draco didn't mind her putting these in there, and he actually found some of them quite amusing when she had him sit with her and look through them.

Draco pulled out one of the albums from the fourth row down. It was red with a black firework-like design and white lettering which read "Forever Together" on the front and held a stand-still picture of when Draco and Hermione graduated from Hogwarts. With both of them being the Head Boy and Girl they had to give a speech together, and following the speech they held hands and bowed.

That was the first time both recognized the sparks between each other.

Draco took the book with him into the entryway of the manner, where a warm fire had been roaring all day, thanks to the house elves. (Draco smiled a little when he remembered when Hermione had a big fit over how many there were in the manor, and demanded that Draco set some of them free. Of course, rather than doing that he sent them to Dumbledore, who took care of them and paid them just like Dobby.)

Draco was about midway through the photo album when he heard a noise from upstairs. Getting pissed off at the person's timing to break into the house, he slammed the album on the table and stood up.

Of all days... why today? The day of Hermione's funeral, why did someone have enough nerve to break into the manor?

Draco grabbed a bat on the way up the stairs, hiding his wand behind it. Slowly he crept up the stairs, his eyes fully aware of any movement on the floor above. He thought he heard rugged breathing in Hermione's old room. He could feel the breeze from outside as he reached the hallway.

Whoever it was, they were in Hermione's room and they had left the window open. ...They were by the fireplace, trying to get it to start up.

Draco heard the whimpered cry of "Lumos!" and nearly jumped. It was a witch. A desperate witch.

He silently lay down his bat in the hall and brought his wand up, just in case they tried to attack him. He still made cautious steps to the bedroom, but just barely.

When Draco reached the room, he found whoever it was laying on the floor, her head in her hands, crying quietly. She was filthy, with runs of dry blood everywhere. Her wand had been snapped into so many pieces, no wonder it hadn't lit up. Draco sighed with relief.

The witch had heard him and quickly sat up and looked straight at him. His breath caught in his throat and as she slowly, shyly, smiled at him.

Hermione.

"W-W-What are you doing here?" Draco asked, surprised. "I thought you were... I thought..."

Hermione sniffled, then stood up, a painful expression on her face. "You thought I was dead. You thought my station was bombed, and I was dead. And I tell you, Draco, I nearly was. But I promised you I'd come back, didn't I? And I wanted to make that promise be me alive, not dead in a casket."

"Oh, Hermione..." he pulled her into a hug, careful not to hurt her anymore. He kissed the top of her head, looked up and smiled. "Hermione... I love you. I really, really love you."

"I know you do... that's why I didn't die. I was going to give up so many times and just die there, but... I couldn't. I love you, too, Draco... and I couldn't wait to hear those words from you..."

"Hermione... I was so stupid not to have done this before, but..." Draco reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black velvet box. He opened it behind his back and smiled at Hermione. "Hermione..." Draco slowly got down on a bended knee, holding her hands. Hermione gasped. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes, of course..."

Draco woke up early the next morning, a smile on his face. Hermione was home, she was back.

But slowly that smiled made its way into a frown as he realized... it was only a dream. A happy dream, giving him what he wants most. She wasn't alive. She wasn't home. She wasn't going to be marrying Draco.

He slowly crept downstairs, going to make himself a cup of coffee. He grabbed one of the photo albums containing pictures of Hermione and himself and made his way into the kitchen. But not before running back to the bookshelf and noticing one of the photo albums were missing.

He searched around quickly, looking everywhere. He ran back upstairs into Hermione's old room. He found it lying on her bed, opened to the last page of Draco wishing Hermione luck as she went into the war.

Draco picked up the album and stared at the picture. He hadn't put that picture in there. It was Hermione's, to keep with her during the war.

Draco looked at Hermione's bed, hoping to see her lying there, maybe asleep, but there, nonetheless. But she wasn't.

He picked up a piece of parchment lying on her pillow, her neat handwriting and what looked like dry tear drops.

'_Dearest Draco-  
__I want you to know... I love you, and I will always love you. I'm sorry.  
__-__Forever Yours- Hermione'_

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A/N: And that'll be the end! Hope you liked it, and hope it's not too cheesy! Sorry it was so long for some of you, and sorry it was so short for others! And sorry, for those of you who might be reading my other stories, that I have not updated in a –long- time, I'm working on it just for you! I'm nearly done with the next chapter for "Your Trash Is My Treasure" and "A Little Bird Told Me"... not quite ready for "The Color of Winter"... and I'll probably be starting another one, maybe, I'm not sure... But anyhow! I hope you liked it! Please review! And if you have any questions, feel free to email me at ! Or you can leave your email address in your review, and –I- will email –you-! Much love! –Kayla Renae--


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